Alice Englert, who stars as writer and director of Bad Behaviour, examines the situations people find themselves in when they harbor a dislike for others due to weird, at times unnoticeable reasons. It’s possible that we may have seen parts of ourselves that we do not like in them or the person looks like someone else we already know and don’t really fancy. However, most of us would move on amidst the interruption; this new dark comedy however delves into what occurs when these scenarios result in extreme actions leading us to attack innocent people out of blue.
The film centers around Jennifer Connelly’s character Lucy who may or may not end up lashing back at specific individuals during this peculiarly odd character study. The movie revolves around a mother-daughter duo that tried its luck or is still striving to succeed in showbiz. Connelly plays a mom whose childhood memories are filled with being a child star while Dylan (Englert), her daughter, is an unconventional stuntwoman away on some sort of fantasy movie gone wrong location shoot. Despite perhaps its modest effect on you personally as the film falls short of being groundbreaking or even well balanced the end product forces you to reflect upon your own idiosyncratic family dynamics.
According to Alice Englert in her director’s statement, “Bad Behavior is a valentine to adults who are still coming-of-age.” Because they resemble other people one dislikes it seems foolish going off at unrelated persons one could say which explains why there exists what she calls “coming-of-age” theme. This all happens in a spiritual retreat outside civilization where Lucy searches for truth in middle age. Run by Elon, he is this delightful young guy with profound wisdom. Ben Whishaw portrays him—now English actor could sleepwalk through the role but it isn’t so bad since he adds some quietly desolate humor to these high-minded think pieces.
The mother-daughter set-up means two main characters fighting for supremacy, therefore the film frequently cuts between Lucy’s absurd retreat and Dylan’s operational escapade which has her getting to be too familiar with her boss, drinking a few too many adult beverages and taking things a bit too far with her tricks. Because compared to Lucy who is in the middle of an erratic retreat, Dylan’s senseless “bad behavior” (this explains the title) indicates she is only an extension or a redo of what her mom did at that age.
Meanwhile, Whishaw’s Elon—by the way he might as well be a fraud since off he goes puffing cigarettes and laughing at his audience—starts to unnerve Lucy, particularly after one VIP guest just arrived. Introducing model DJ Beverly (played by Dasha Nekrasova), who ends up being partnered with Lucy for numerous role-playing activities designed to purge certain emotions and secrets from your very being. Maybe it is herself as seen through Harriet or perhaps even it is possible that Beverly reminds her of Harriet (her unseen mother), hence we come back to the previous point about patterns of behavior not changing themselves.
Beverly irritates Lucy, causing her to attack Beverly in the literal sense and land herself into jail, where she gets a public defender Karan Gill from I May Destroy You who turns out to be quite charming especially when they meet with Dylan, their daughter who is back from her own unsuccessful adventure. For sure it seems that every little side card does seem to turn into its own brand of chaos.
In real life, Englert has her own industry mom, two-time Oscar winner Jane Campion (The Piano, Power of the Dog) and she even has a fun little cameo as a doctor here. Similarly, acclaimed director Sofia Coppola once explored a Hollywood parent-child dynamic with her masterful 2010 film Somewhere; it appears that maybe Englert is doing something similar in her movie and this fictionalized slant may also speak about her own kind of Tinseltown upbringing.
The tone of Bad Behaviour is often overwhelming and jarring to a fault, throwing you into a disjointed whirl you’re not always ready for; on the other hand, it’s evident that Englert’s confidence in her filmmaking abilities keeps growing. It’s always more rewarding when a director tries too hard and just misses the target than when they do what everyone expected them to do. But let us not forget that while Connelly always gives a reliable performance there are moments one wishes she would go further. She has proved this over many years.
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